1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to textile sleeves for protecting elongate members, and more particularly to woven sleeves.
2. Related Art
It is known to wrap wires and wire harnesses in protective sleeves, such as in automobiles, aircraft or aerospace craft, to provide protection to the wires against abrasion, fluid and thermal affects. In order to achieve the desired protection, the protective sleeve may have multiple layers, with some of the layers being specifically provided for different types of protection. For example, one layer may be provided for water resistance, e.g. a sheet of plastic material, while another layer may be provided for abrasion resistance, and yet another layer may be provided for protection against thermal conditions, e.g. a non-woven layer. Unfortunately, although the aforementioned multilayer sleeves may provide suitable protection against the various environmental conditions, they are typically bulky, thereby requiring an increased volume of space, being relatively heavy and exhibiting limited flexibility, thereby being subject to kinking and opening along wrapped edges. Other known woven sleeves 1 in addition to the multilayer sleeves discussed above also exhibit hoop strength and kinking issues when bent about corners and into a generally u-shaped configuration, such as shown in FIG. 7, thereby potentially exposing the member 2 contained in a cavity 3 of the sleeve 1 to contamination. This is made possible as a result of the relatively inflexible, rigid edges 4 being opened away from one another as the sleeve 1 is bent. Accordingly, wrappable sleeves constructed in accordance with the prior art can prove problematic in some applications, particularly applications requiring routing through tight, winding areas, and applications having weight restrictions, such as aircraft and aerospace applications, for example.